


The Weight of Living

by AndroidTwin (LolaDiBlack)



Series: Headcanon me, Tumblr! [7]
Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Slash, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Tony Needs a Hug, suicidal behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 12:47:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12748623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LolaDiBlack/pseuds/AndroidTwin
Summary: Some days Tony is the Mariner, some the albatross.Bucky has to brush up on his Romantic Period poetry to keep up.





	The Weight of Living

**Author's Note:**

> Way over there in TumblrLand, anonymous asked:
> 
> Ok but low-key suicidal Tony. Like he's not actively trying to die but he's always willing to rush heading into danger, always just a bit slow to dodge hits, and eager to take them for someone else. Nobody even notices until Bucky and/or Rhodey come by

Old habits die hard -if they die at all,- and that’s why he notices. How Iron Man plays it fast and loose and reckless, how everybody yells and huff but say nothing that hasn’t been said before. Tony’s eyes are miles away, he’s not listening and after they’re done, he smirks and walks away; every word sliding off his back like old snakeskin.

Bucky notices how Tony rarely joins them for meals, or anything really; how he would dance and deceive Colonel Rhodes and how the War Machine would narrow his eyes like an old shrew as if he is trying to see beyond the smiles and the quips and the easy affection. Only when Rhodes visits do Tony looks there.

Something is coming and they all know it, it’s why they’re all in New York again. In the meantime, Bucky wanders throughout the place and trains; gets some more memories back and fights off his nightmares in the gym. Because old habits die hard -if you remember to kill them- does Bucky see the silhouette blending in the shadows.

Tony on the ledge of the rooftop, when he was supposed to be in medical after a crash with a tank. Tony shuffling closer and…

“Stark?” His heart lurches when Tony turns his face to him but doesn’t step away. “Stark, what the hell are you doing? Get back!“

No matter how enhanced he is, Bucky wouldn’t be able to catch him if he falls. Something in the back of his head tells him that from everything he’d observed so far, Tony would most likely jump. 

“Stark! Get down from that ledge!” Tony doesn’t seem to hear him and Bucky won’t be fast enough. “You don’t wanna do this, man. Come back before you hurt yourself.” 

Bucky doesn’t have the words, he doesn’t know how to help; old habits die hard and somewhere else he’s seen that slump of the shoulders and that faraway stare (a lifetime ago), not seeking the cold embrace but not shying away from it. 

“Do you know The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Barnes?” Tony’s voice carries with the wind and dread pools in Bucky’s stomach as he inches forward. “I like to recite the last stanza of the first part, do you know how it goes?”

“I don’t remember much, no.” Good God! What could he say if Tony pitched himself off his fucking Tower? ‘I didn’t remember some old timey poetry, sorry Stevie.’ Maybe… he just has to make the guy talk? “Care to share with the amnesiac?”

There was a bark of laughter, the genuine kind; apparently Stark have been faking even that. Tony turned his face to the starless heavens. “Ok, Barnes. It goes like this:

‘God save thee, ancient Mariner! 

From the fiends, that plague thee thus!— 

Why look'st thou so?‘—With my cross-bow” Bucky was so close now, just a few feet more. That’s when Tony finally pivoted around. It took a second for Bucky to realize he’d been played. Tony opened his arms like a wingless Icarus and his voice thundered, “I shot the ALBATROSS.”

“Tony, NO!” Despair kept him immobile, his mouth opened in a rictus of horror and pain, that was it; the impotence of watching Tony leap into the abyss below with no way of bringing him back. Of failing, of…

Oh god! His eyes were still fixed on the empty spot when the Iron Man suit whizzed by, the sound of repulsors startling him into breathing again. Bucky sagged in relief and waited until his limbs stopped shaking.

He was gonna fucking kill him. He was! He didn’t care about being pardoned, he was gonna end Tony Fucking Stark. He…

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT, UH?” Bucky couldn’t give two shits and a blind penguin about getting in Stark’s face or the volume of his voice. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Tony just stood there, against the glass with his eyes zeroed on Bucky’s. “You asked.”

That threw him off, “What?”

“About the Ancient Mariner.”

Bucky spluttered, enraged and confused and fucking scared witless. “That’s not how the fucking poem goes, Stark!”

Tony cocked his head a little as if he was the one confused by Bucky’s behavior. “Well it does, when you’re the albatross, does it not?” He narrowed his eyes then and shook Bucky off. Until then, Bucky hadn’t realized how close he’d gotten. “Besides, why are you getting your long johns in a twist?”

“Wh-why?!”

“Yeah, why? Why do you even care?” Tony slipped away then and Bucky couldn’t help but ponder.

In the morning, Bucky had decided he needed no reason to care, he just did. 

“Going somewhere, Buck?” Steve’s voice was jovial and friendly, it warmed him like a hug. But he wasn’t about to spill his guts over the breakfast table.

“Stark’s workshop.” He was carrying a tray with food and a fresh pot of coffee. Stark wasn’t gonna waste away on his watch. Fucking asshole.

“Sta- Want me to go with you?” Steve asked as he stood; like his frame could be a wall of protection; cute but unnecessary.

“Is he rabid or something?” Bucky quipped and Steve took a step back. They avoided Stark just as much as he avoided them but Steve was their leader and he hasn’t seen. “I can take him, Stevie. Go hen Wilson or something.”

“Jerk.”

“Yeah, yeah. Later you little punk.”

There had been a tiff over ‘shop access when he moved into the Tower, apparently, now it was above their level of clearance and nobody liked to ask the required permission. Bucky didn’t mind, much less if he’d to ask FRIDAY. “Morning, little lady.”

“Morning, Mr. Barnable.”

“Still won’t call me by my name, I see.” Bucky liked the AI, she had no qualms about treating him like any other person and pranking him if she felt like it. It was nice. “I was wondering if you’d allow me to see your boss?”

“Whatever for?” There was a warning in her synthesized voice, Bucky heeded it.

“Well, he sucks at taking care of himself and I brought him food.”

“Boss’ security is my priority, are you alluding I’m bad at my job?” Was she, could computers hiss?

“He was playing Russian Roulette at the top of the Tower last night, you tell me.” Bucky wasn’t trying to antagonize her but she needed to understand the urgency of the matter.

“I don’t have arms, so I’m doing my best without violating protocol,” FRIDAY said, could programs get tired? 

“Let me try then,” Bucky search one of her cameras, lifting the tray like a peace offering, “I’m just trying to feed him.”

“Very well,” She ceded as the doors unlocked. “Remember, I’m watching you.”

“Wouldn’t forget it.” He marched in before she had time to rescind. Tony looked like a steampunk bastard in the middle of his shop. In the harsh fluorescent lights, his skin looked ashen marred with grease. As if he was wasting away. “Stark.”

“FRIDAY, intruder alert.” He mumbled but remained hunched over whatever he was working on. 

“Boss.”

“Breakfast’s here,” Bucky announced.

“Not hungry, bye bye.” Tony still didn’t face him. Bucky felt the surge of anger and fear; fresh and ugly and terrifying.

The servos shifted as he found a table for the tray. God, he wanted to pull his hair; this asshole. This tired, miserable asshole. “I didn’t really ask if you were hungry, Stark.”

“I’m not, so you can go away.”

“Or, I can call your friend and let him know what you’ve been doing when everyone sleeps.” That was a low blow and uncalled for but he was running out of options and no one else seemed to care. Tony froze and his shoulders bunched up.

“Don’t- Don’t bring Rhodey into this.” There was a catch there. “I can take care of myself just fine. I don-”

“You threw yourself from the top of the Tower, Tony!”  Bucky promised himself he wouldn’t lose his temper, he swore he was gonna be calm. This wasn’t calm. He took a deep breath and tried again. “You think nobody noticed but I did. I notice how you’re not really here and how fast you fly towards danger, how you hardly eat and how sometimes you let that beard get out of control.”

Bucky waited, even when the silence was suffocating, perhaps he’d said too much. Perhaps…

“That’s very stalkerish behavior. It’s creepy.”

“I brought you a whole pot of black coffee.” He offered because maybe Tony was right, not that Bucky cared much, not if it kept Tony alive. 

“Should have opened with that,” Tony said and finally moved towards the food. Bucky sat back and watched.

Things didn’t get better and Bucky didn’t say anything; he did cover Tony’s back in the field, sniping things and clipping goons before Tony could catapult himself into danger. He brought at least one meal to the shop every day and made sure FRIDAY had a take-out order ready when Tony was out of his reach. He’d watch closely but sometimes Tony would slip away and jump off the roof.

Bucky hated those days; he would stick to Tony and glower at anyone trying to say something. 

“Could you fucking stop?” 

“Some days I’m the albatross,” Tony said not looking at Bucky. “Most days, I’m the Mariner.”

Bucky read the fucking poem. He hated the fucking romantics but found himself connecting with Coleridge. With the penance that had to be paid, the albatross around his neck, the fucking weight of living. He understood it, lived through it, still does. 

That doesn’t stop him from trying to bring Tony ashore. 

It’s weeks later, so many days upon days upon days when it happens. Tony was having a good week, needed little prompting to eat and left the lab, talked about some upgrade for the Spider-kid of his, even played some of that loud music he was fond of, he’d smiled at Bucky and thanked him for the food and coffee.

So, of course, the Thing they’ve been preparing for attacked then and Bucky was too far away to catch Tony. Tony who compared himself to a dead bird and looked more like a myth. 

“You want to fall? Then fall!” Thanos pitched Tony from the sky and he looked like a star aflame. Bucky could do nothing but scream. 

“Tony!” He roars and fear is pumping through his veins because this had been a good week and Tony had smiled and FRIDAY called him ‘Mr. Barnes’ and it had been a good week, fuck!

“Bucky, stop!” 

“Tony!” The world stops, as he runs and tries to reach before Tony plummets. Tony never reached the ground before. He was meant for the skies, he couldn’t…

Like some ethereal being, Tony is surrounded in light. Suspended above the ground, Bucky is mesmerized by the image and on the other side is a woman whose face shifts between flesh and bone. Bucky feels heavier than ever but even in that feeling of swimming through molasses, he hears it. “Get Stark, get him!” 

Bucky narrows his eyes at the woman and moves, drops the weaponry and runs as if his life depended on it, maybe it does. Because Tony smiled and she didn’t get to win now. He launches and grabs Tony with his metal arm, the bubble breaks and everything starts to move in real time again. 

Bucky slumps with Tony half on his lap, half off; he cares very little about blood circulation at the moment. “Tony? Tony, hey dollface talk to me.” He begs but the suit is dead, nothing but a metal coffin and he is terrified. “Tony, please. Don’t do this now. Tony?”

“Allow me.” She’s right there, just like in the poem. Dead and alive, powerfully sublime but she  _ can’t  _ have him. Bucky snarls. “You have plucked him from my grasp, Soldier. I won’t take him, not yet.”

The armor falls back as if she had melted it with nothing but a thought. Bucky stares in fascination, his eyes on Tony; flesh hand over his chest, trying to feel a pulse. 

“Go on. It’s not every day that Love beats Death.”

“I-”

“Icarus loved the Sun too much, this one had nothing but an empty sky. Show him the map of stars you’ve crafted in his name. Call him home.”

Bucky’s heart thumped wildly in his ribcage. What if Tony chose to leave all the same? What then? “Tony? Sweetheart, please. Come on, are you really gonna let that purple blob become the protagonist? Tony, darling. Please, for me?”

He was getting desperate, he knew. Bucky buries his face in the crook of Tony’s neck and fightst to breathe. He caught him, he was there. He loved him and it still wasn’t-

“Don’t tell Rhodey.”

Bucky pulls back, eyes awash with tears and can’t stop the sobbing laughter. Hugging him tighter, because he fucking can. “How about we kick this guy’s ass. Then, when we get home, I’ll make us some coffee.”

Tony’s eyes light up and he smiles. “You should have lead with that…darling.”

Bucky will deny blushing when Tony kisses his cheek, he swears he didn’t. Death is not a reliable witness anyhow. It’s hard to kill old habits if you do it by yourself. 

So, Bucky Barnes takes Tony Stark’s hand and they go kick some Titan butt. They have a coffee date, after all.

  
  



End file.
